19. Sisters of the Infinite Schism.

River lurched slightly as she and Snape landed in Grimmauld Place, and quickly checked her watch. Yes – five minutes after they left, that was good. No time lost that way, and they would also not run into themselves. Snape immediately swooped out of the room muttering something about finding Dumbledore to explain everything to him, and River let him go.

She turned and sank into the chair beside the Doctor's bed, and began scanning him again – not out of necessity, but out of worry. Nothing had changed; though his heart rate was slightly elevated, a quick scan of his brain showed that he was simply dreaming. He also had a slight fever, but thankfully it hadn't risen since she had left.

River put her scanner away and sat back, quickly running over the possibilities of how to stop Voldemort and get the Master back. The Master probably wouldn't come back willingly – she suspected that he would be highly likely to want to see what possibilities this world provided, especially considering the way it had ended for him in his original universe. For obvious reasons, however, that would be disastrous. From what she had heard of the Master, the last thing that he should be given was magic. She hoped the Doctor knew best how to talk him down so that they would not have to resort to her plan of simply keeping him as a prisoner.

As for Voldemort, there was still the question of his horcruxes, which Dumbledore had affirmed still existed in this universe. And one of them was Harry. If she remembered correctly – and there was no doubt that she did – the scar was the horcrux, and killing Harry had severed the horcrux's link with the living world, thus rendering it a normal scar when Harry came back to life. However, killing Harry in this universe was only guaranteed to kill the horcrux – there was no indication that he would survive the process, especially because the Dumbledore of this universe was still alive.

As for the other horcruxes… She knew what they were, where to find them, and how to deactivate them, but given the differences in this parallel world she was unsure how to proceed. If it was possible for Dumbledore to get himself chased out of Hogwarts earlier than expected (for reasons that River was unaware of but suspected had quite a lot to do with Fudge's paranoia, Umbridge's ambition and Dumbledore constantly telling the world about Voldemort's existence, thereby further undermining Fudge's authority), was it also possible for him to have managed to start finding the horcruxes? After all, he already knew that Harry was one, and that he would have to die. That indicated a certain knowledge of how they worked.

Then there was the question of raising enough of an army to fight the Death Eaters. Snape had not seemed aware of their efforts to travel back in time, which indicated that Voldemort had ordered them to keep hidden from the main group of Death Eaters, including their past selves. Though accidents could of course happen, like Snape having seen Rookwood, their presence had not been overly obvious. What they had been doing in the meantime, though, was anyone's guess, but River thought it likely that they would have been sent off to recruit other wizards and magical creatures. Would that mean, though, that they would be at the ceremony to "welcome" the Master, and how large would that make the army?

River sighed. She hated dealing with uncertainties.

In the bed beside her, the Doctor began to moan. River frowned and leaned over him, placing a hand on his forehead. Still the same temperature, though he was sweating a little. She smoothed his lank, dirty hair back from his face and hoped that he could feel the soothing gesture.

Apparently he hadn't, because he moaned again and started muttering in his sleep, his head tossing and turning restlessly.

"Nee t' sculpt-statue," he suddenly murmured.

River's eyebrows shot to her hairline.

He coughed, looking strained. His hands twitched, his fingers flexing as though he was trying to poke something. She stroked his hair, trying to calm him down, but he continued to panic despite her best efforts.

"Wake up," he murmured.

River tried to send comforting thoughts through to the Doctor's mind to try to send him back to his much needed sleep, but before she could get past his tattered barriers, his eyes flew open, and the Doctor stared blearily at her.

"Hello, Sweetie. How are you feeling?"

"Is it you?" The Doctor asked.

River's heart sank. "Yes, it's me." She squeezed the Doctor's hand. "I'm here."

"No," the Doctor replied, impatient. "I mean – is it really you?"

River nodded, swallowing. "Yes, Doctor, it's me – look, I'm squeezing your hand. Can you feel it?"

He nodded, then paled and squeezed his eyes shut, breathing hard. "They always do that," he said, when he'd got his breathing under control. "You," he said, opening his eyes, "always say that."

She had never felt so helpless in her life, and it must have showed, because the Doctor remained silent, waiting for her answer despite his obvious confusion.

"Sweetie, look around you – we're in Grimmauld Place."

"It looks the same." He turned his head back to stare at her. "It looks the same as I remember it – they know this, River. Tell me something they don't know!" He grabbed her hand in both of his. "River, please – I need to know if you're real. It's very important."

River racked her brains, trying to think of something she could do that the obviously very realistic hallucinations had not done, but could not think of a single thing. Instead, she did the only thing that came to mind – she strengthened her hold on the Doctor's hand and gently pushed her way into his mind. He immediately stiffened, his breathing speeding up to an uncomfortable degree, and weld his eyes shut. She felt a feeble mental presence trying to push her away. She pushed back slightly, intending to comfort him and letting him know that she wanted to do this, but he continued to struggle, and River feared that he would injure himself further.

She withdrew from his mind. "I'm sorry," she said, letting the emotion in her voice speak for itself.

The Doctor gasped and warily opened his eyes, squeezing her hand tightly. "You're safe."

River smiled gently at him, trying not to feel guilty – yes it had been the only way to prove that she was real, but it had hurt and scared him, yet here he was worrying about her. She wondered when he would start to care about his own well-being.

"You went somewhere," the Doctor continued. "To stop the Angels?"

River shook her head. "No, not the Angels – I went into the past with Snape to stop Vol-"

The Doctor gasped and tensed again, almost hyperventilating, and River snapped her jaw shut. She ran her hand through his hair again, making quiet soothing noises, which apparently seemed to work because he quietened after a few moments and sunk back into his pillows, looking thoroughly drained.

"You're tired," she said, "and you need to rest. This can wait."

"No… Tell me."

River hesitated.

"I won't sleep until you do," the Doctor replied seriously, "so just tell me."

River sighed. "We couldn't get to the Master in time. They've taken him."

The Doctor jolted upright in bed. "Wha-" he interrupted himself with a fit of painful sounding coughing and River held him in place, keeping him upright so that he could breathe properly.

He felt weak and frail in her arms and, besides the coughing, he was still – oh so still, and it unnerved her. The Doctor she knew was manic, constantly bouncing around, asking questions, answering questions, going off on random tangents and waving so wildly that he was forever knocking things over. But now, as the coughing subsided and he was able to breathe more normally, he sank into her embrace and stayed there, unable to move.

And it broke her heart.

"We need," he gasped, the breath rattling in his lungs, "to get'im back."

"We will," River assured him. "Snape has gone to tell Dumbledore everything – they're making a plan for an ambush now."

The Doctor shook his head weakly as River laid him back down. "No," he murmured, "ambush. Too many…"

"We haven't got a choice," she told him. "And we overheard the day, date and year. Doctor, it's our only chance to stop him before they take him to a prison or base somewhere. Do you know how long it took just to find you? And now that you've escaped, they'll be even more careful!"

The Doctor remained silent for a few moments, reluctantly having conceded the point, before opening his mouth to speak again. "This will be the Final Battle?"

"I think so, yes. It makes sense – they'll be out in the open, we need to attack anyway, and Dumbledore already knows of the horcruxes. To wait and let him gather more strength would be suicide."

"Horcruxes?" The Doctor repeated. "But Harry…"

River nodded sadly. "He has a scar in this universe as well, yes."

"You've seen him?"

"I heard the story. This Dumbledore also thinks that Harry has to die."

The Doctor remained silent, letting that sink in.

"I don't know what the other horcruxes are," River continued. "I offered to share my knowledge of the books but Dumbledore refused – he said it could be a fatal distraction."

The Doctor didn't react to this at all. River sighed and rummaged in her bag, unable to put it off any longer.

"Doctor?" He turned to look at her vaguely. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to fix your injuries."

The Doctor winced. "Oh, really?"

River rolled her eyes at him, though not unkindly. "You know I have to. Now lift up your shirt – I need to put this on top of you so that it can fix your ribs."

The Doctor stared at it, making no move to lift up his shirt. "Can't you just magic it or something?"

"I've only just started learning magic – I don't really want to risk mending bones." He still didn't move. "Well," she relented, "I could try, but you'd probably be set on fire or cut in half."

The Doctor obediently began lifting up his shirt.

River smirked at him, trying to lighten the tension that seemed to be settling in the room. "There's a good boy. Now, let's see…"

River struggled to hide her shock as the Doctor finished lifting up his shirt; he was much thinner than she remembered. She had known, of course, that he had lost weight through captivity but seeing for herself the ribs clearly showing through his skin made her heart clench. And the lacerations that lined his ribcage and stomach…

"I didn't want you to see…" the Doctor murmured, startling her. She looked up to see him watching her apprehensively.

She plastered a reassuring expression on her face. "I'll fix it in no time," she said, placing the bone-knitter over the ribs that the scanner had told her were broken.

The Doctor remained still, avoiding eye contact, and River remained silent, for one of the few times in her life not knowing what to say. Reassurance was futile, she knew, because the Doctor was far from stupid and would immediately see through her. Sharing her anger towards his captors was also out of the question – she knew that the Doctor would disapprove of some of the thoughts tearing through her mind and, despite what had happened to him, would probably try to argue with her. And the last thing she wanted right now was to get him into a state when he was already so ill.

Suddenly, and without warning, the Doctor shifted under her arms and moved to the other side of the bed. Somehow he managed to sit up, though he was hissing in pain and wrapping an arm around his ribcage, where the machine still rested.

River ran over to his side immediately and tried to push him back into bed. "What are you doing? You're in no state to get up!"

"Harry," the Doctor gasped, pushing against her with surprising strength.

"Just lie down!" River commanded, forcing him back into bed.

The Doctor immediately tried to get up again. "You don't-"

"No," she countered, not even bothering to listen to whatever he was going to say, "I do know. You think you can stop what's going to happen to him – Doctor, you can't. Harry has to die. It's the only way."

"No it isn't," the Doctor countered, finally giving up the struggle and sinking back onto the mattress. River quickly checked to see the bone-knitter was still on properly which, fortunately, it was.

"Yes he does," River countered. "The horcrux was intertwined with Harry's soul."

"No," the Doctor insisted. "There's another way – I know how to get rid of the horcrux without killing Harry."

River considered him for a moment. Though he was undoubtedly dazed from his recent ordeal and exhausted beyond belief, she could see in his eyes that he was completely lucid.

"I'm not delirious," he said impatiently, having anticipated her thoughts.

"But the books never mentioned another way."

"Of course not," the Doctor said. "And there are three reasons for that. 1) The books are in an alternate universe so don't dictate what happens here. Just because the books never mention something or describe something happening doesn't mean that the same happens here. It's like when Rose…" he seemed to choke briefly on her name, but managed to recover quickly, driven by necessity. "It's like when Rose was a dog and her father was alive. Alternate universes are different, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in big ones."

He drew a big breath and held up his finger so that she wouldn't interrupt. "2) Killing him was very dramatic, let you see Dumbledore again, and was very important from a deep-philosophical-emotional-y type viewpoint. And, let's face it, you need something that dramatic in a show-down, or it isn't worth reading. And 3) JK Rowling couldn't really say "by the way there's this as well but we're not going to use it because I think killing him will give you a better emotional rollercoaster"." He paused. "Which it did. I seem to remember I threw my copy into the Time Vortex and had to go buy another one so that I could finish it."

"So what is this 'other way', then?" River asked.

"We need something that'll isolate the two souls. And then we need to kill one of them."

"But how? There's nothing on Earth that can do that!"

"Ah," the Doctor said, waving his still-raised finger as if to underline his point. "But I know how and I'm not from Earth, am I – which actually reminds me of point number 4; unless JK Rowling is a time travelling alien with access to this technology, which, by the way, only exists in the best hospital in the universe – and I don't think she is – there's no way she could have known that it existed." He frowned. "Actually that should really be point 2 because it kind of renders 2 and 3 invalid…"

"But," River said, feeling the need to point out the necessary, "if it only exists in our universe and only the Sisters of the Infinite Schism have it, how does that help us?"

"…Oh. That's a tricky one."

"The only reason I managed to get here at all was because of this, which detected your DNA in parallel universes" she said, showing him the Doctor Detector, "and even then it took me to Hogwarts rather than where you actually where."

"I was hidden by charms," the Doctor said. "I overheard the Death Eaters talking once – funny the stuff you pick up if they think you're unconscious – and they mentioned the Forbidden Forest. That would have taken you as close as it could get but, because of magical interference, not quite close enough."

River resisted the urge to throw something in frustration. He had been there the entire time! "Not to mention the difference in time lines," River said. "By the time I get to our universe, get the-"

"Soul Separator. You'd be surprised how many rooky telepaths manage to forget who's who on their first mind-meld and need help straightening it all out."

"By the time I get the Soul Separator," River said, "and gone back to Amy and Rory's time so that I can get back here, I would arrive too late to actually help, and that's even if I manage to get the right place!"

"You'd be where I am," the Doctor pointed out, "because of that," he nodded at the Detector. "And I'll be right here. You'll definitely land in England. Then you could use the Vortex Manipulator to get to the right time."

River pressed her lips together in an unexpectedly uncanny imitation of Snape. "It's risky."

"It's that or wait to see if Harry wakes up again."

"I can't leave you here," River protested. "Not when I just found you."

"You have to," the Doctor said. "Me being here is the only way of getting back to this universe. And you getting back to this universe with the Separator is the only way of saving Harry. And getting rid of that horcrux is the only way to kill V – You-Know-Who." He raised his eyebrows. "Need I go on?"

"I just want you safe," River said, knowing that she probably sounded pathetic and yet at this point not caring at all.

"And you'd risk a young boy's life to do that? Because that's what you're doing, if you don't go back. Harry will die. He might wake up again, yes," the Doctor conceded, "but I'm not willing to risk anything if there's something that can help him."

He looked at her pleadingly. River sighed. "Damn. I never could resist those eyes."

The Doctor grinned. "There's a good girl."

River got to her feet, readied the Dimension Cannon, and slung her backpack over her shoulder. She looked the Doctor sternly in the eye. "This had better work," she warned, "because if I get to Amy and Rory's universe and find out that I can't get back, I will kill you."

And with that, she disappeared.